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Thursday, April 30, 2009

The Ulduar Raiding Gear List: Part 2

Update: This post now includes all of the Ulduar Gear available as of 5/19/09. It requires a lot of data entry to create these posts so I am sure there are some errors involved. Please let me know if I have an incorrect link or a valuation seems wrong.

Here is part 2 to the gear ranking. This post focuses on the jewelry and weapons available to moonkin. Please refer to part 1 to see how the list was built.

The Drape of Mortal Downfall is awesome if you can get a hold of it. If you were able to pick up the Pennant Cloak before Ulduar then you are going to be wearing it for a while. The lack of spirit and gem socket make it awesome. In reality there is only the Drape of Mortal Downfall is better and it drops off of a hard mode. That said, the Deathchill Cloak is perfect for alts and offspecs since it is so easy to obtain.

First of all, I urge you to use this trinket ranking with a little bit of skepticism. Most of the new trinkets haven’t been tested to my knowledge and how their procs work is unknown. In most cases I assumed that they would work in a similar manner to the trinkets we had in the 3.0 version of WoW. In cases like the Vanquished Clutches of Yogg Saron I had to ignore the proc completely because I have no clue as to how it works. I will update this list as more information is known.

The updated Flare of the Heavens is an awesome trinket. It is a clear upgrade to our current non-hit trinkets. The Illustration of the Dragon Soul is still an awesome trinket and is increadibly easy to get since it drops off of Sarth 0D. Imagine how good it would be if they hadn't nerfed it.

Finally, I want to make one little comment about hit trinkets. I generally don’t recommend using hit trinkets after early raiding. The reason is they just have way to much hit on them. A single trinket can provide 45% of the total hit rating you need. Unfortunately that makes you very inflexible and forces you to skip some other awesome trinkets that provide a ton of Spell Power, Crit rating or Haste rating.

The Signet of Manifested Pain is still an awesome ring. The Pyrelight Circle as almost identical stats to make it an awesome ring also. However, the two best rings currently available are the Conductive Seal and Nebula Band. The first is a Yogg hard mode drop, the second an Algalon 10man drop.

Blizzard added only 3 Off Hand items in Ulduar. It is clear that Blizzard is pushing staves with the new staff enchant and the lack of MH/OH options. However, making the transition from MH/OH to Staff can be a little troubling. If your still using a MH/OH combo your Naxx Off Hands will still serve you well. In my pre-Naxx gear guide I recommended that you pick up the Ward of the Violet Citadel. It is still very highly ranked and is incredably easy to get.

I want to make one thing very clear up front. The Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings legendary Mace is a healer weapon. It is near perfectly itemized for a moonkin, and I've seen some people suggest that we should be able to get one, but I have to disagree. The proc is a healing proc, it is cleary best for healers. I have only included it on the list because I there are Resto Druids out ther that have a Moonkin secondary spec and will pick up this item.

Once again, Val'anyr is a healer weapon, and I don't want to hear any QQ about how your guild won't let you have the mace or its fragments. I agree with them. Giving this mace to a DPSer is a good way to break up a guild and look like a fool on websites like WoWInsider and MMO-Champion.

Since, my last update Starshard Edge and Constellus have been added loot tables. They make the MH/OH combo viable once again but I still prefer the staff below. these two weapons are nice because they are of 239 iLvL with 587 spell power. Soulscribe is also a great weapon if you can't get hour hand on the staff.

For years I've said "don't use a staff." People have come to me and said "what about this staff? Its awesome." I respond "don't use a staff."

Well, much like they did with Eclipse, Blizzard is forcing us to use staves. Blizzard has provided very few MH/OH options in Ulduar and created some awesome staves. Couple this with the new two-handed spell power weapon enchant and you can see why I am now saying: use a staff. Just be careful how you make the transition. Not all staves are created equal, and you MH/OH combo may be better then some of them. That said, the Staff of Endless Winter is a truely awesome weapon if you can get your hands on one.

Relic/Idol:There arn't enough relics to really rank them, but I'm sure somebody would ask about them if I didn't put a section in the guide about them. I like most Moonkin go with [Idol of the Shooting Star] because it affects Starfire. Some will choose [Idol of Steadfast Renewal] if their rotation focuses on Wrath, but I don't recommend this. The [Idol of Crying Wind] is not a good option at anytime in my opinion. You can find my math here.

I also don't recommend using any of the idols from TBC. Both of the WotLK idols currently available will be purchaseable with Emblems in 3.1 and are much better then anything we found in Outland.

As you can imagine it is a lot of data entry to create the list. I will update it for Ulduar, but it may take a little while, due to how much data entry there is, and we are still discovering new drops from all of the bosses.

To the very first poster - the reason the Forge Ember is not there is most likely because the Sundial of the Exiled is there. The Sundial does the exact same thing as the Forge Ember - static crit rating with a chance to proc spell damage boost - but provides more static crit and more spell power on the proc.

Stats on Forge Ember are about 87% of those of Sundial. Thus if Sundial is worth 174.2, then Forge Ember is worth about 151. Not bad for a blue!!!! It's important to consider using Forge Ember as it has a separate internal cooldown from Sundial - I frequently have both buffs up at the same time.

I haven't run the numbers yet, but the Algalon Dagger is obviously awesome, however I'm not sure it will over take the staff.

First of the hit is an issue. Its looking more and more like the 4T8 bonus will be good so with tier gear alone we will have 188 hit. How we pick up the other 48 - 75 will be interesting.

Second, there still arn't many good off hand options. The staff may still win out.

@Noodleswoop

The 2T7 bonus is a pretty minor bonus all things considered. Its only a 0.5% - 1.0% DPS increase and can be easily dropped.

@Anonymous #9

Yes, according to my Method the Deathchill Cloak is ranked higher then the Cloak of the Unworth Wizard.

If you review my comments at the beginning of Part 1 you will remember that this is purely a DPS ranking. From that point of view 53 Haste is more valueable then 15 spell Power, 42 Int, and 49 Spirit combined. The numbers will be closer now that Imp Moonkin Form adds 30% SP from Spirit but the Deathchill cloack is still very slightly ahead.

The Deathchill Cloak obviously ranks very high on the list because it lacks base stats like Int, Stam and Spirit. That doesn't I would wear the Deathchill Cloak over the Unworth Wizard, but the numbers are correct. People have to decide how much those base stats are worth for them selves.

so u say the staff of endless winter is better dps which would also be my first thought but when I try to make a personal set (or even the optimized set on rawr) I always end up using soulscribe and surpulus limb or ironmender if I need hit or not in the current gear set.And no I haven't done the math but thats what it ends up with using rawr or wrathcalcs

My guild uses epgp I currently have the highest priority. Would you recommend getting Intensity first, to go along with 2 piece t8 (gloves legs) and a helm with hit, so I free up my other slots for pure dps gear? or should I save my priority for something else like The Lifebinder or Robes of the Umbral Brute? Thanks

BTW, I think that the list may need re-formatting again if the lighter item names are meant to indicate BOE status- some are marked correctly but some are not (e.g. in head slot the Cowl of the Absolute is OK but Heroes' Dreamwalker Cover is certainly not BOE!).

This would be really useful to Boomkins like me who have more time for brief farming and AH action than for farming raid BOPs!